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From: lat@druil.UUCP (TepperL)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <203@druil.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Oct-86 15:21:03 EST
Article-I.D.: druil.203
Posted: Thu Oct 30 15:21:03 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Oct-86 20:02:28 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Denver, Co
Lines: 59
Keywords: NuBus, VME, slotted Mac
Summary: More standard bus advantages
Xref: mnetor net.micro.mac:7765 net.micro.68k:1409

In article <1240@hoptoad.uucp>, gnu@hoptoad.UUCP writes:
> The advantages to a company of using a standard bus are mainly these:
> 
>  * Your customers can plug in lots of cards to customize their system.
> 
>  * Your customers can benefit from new technologies faster because you
> (or they) can get new cards from third parties.  Disks, disk controllers,
> networking cards, tapes, serial ports, etc are all easier to buy than to
> build, and the companies that specialize in building them often do a
> better job than a system manufacturer like Apple would.  (Remember the
> horrible Apple hard disks?  Remember the slow Mac floppies?  The Mac
> network that only talks to itself?  Third parties would go bankrupt if
> they tried to sell such stuff.)

There's an additional advantage to a company making a system using a
standard bus, and its an advantage that companies can relate to
(although many haven't yet figured it out):  People will *buy* a
system using a standard bus.  When the time comes to look at a peripheral,
use of a standard bus means there will be different vendors to choose
from.  Different vendors means competition and that means lower prices.
Look at the available prices for SCSI disks for the Mac and you'll
get the drift.

John's point about getting new technology faster is well taken.
Just consider what might have happened had the original Mac been
designed using the Multibus: instant Ethernet, instant hard disks,
instant streaming tape.  You could've put a Fujitsu Eagle on a Mac
if you had the money.  There have been 1024 x 1024 x 8-bit, full color
image processing boards available for the Multibus for several years
now.  Actually, John didn't take it far enough.  This isn't new
technology, it's current technology that wasn't available because
somebody thought it would be more FUN FOR THEM to design a new bus.

It's my belief that a Mac with a Multibus would have buried the IBM PC,
rather than giving it some stiff competition like the real Mac did.  In
addition, a whole lot of the criticism leveled at the Mac by the trade
press would never have even occurred.  Face up to it: a lot of corporate
DP managers that buy PCs read the trade press.  A Multibus with just 2
extra slots would have meant a lot and would have been worth paying for.

But NOOOOOOOO!

Instead, Apple locked people into a proprietary "bus" (if that's what
one chooses to call it) when they couldn't deliver the goods: hard
disks) for well over a year, a SECOND floppy for months.  That hurt
us and it hurt Apple.  The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) has
burned many a company.

There's only one company in the world that can dare to try locking
customers into its products, and that's IBM.  I don't like it, but
it's a FACT.

An aside: From the little I know, it sounds like the VMEbus is a better
bus (now) than the (older) Multibus is now.  I used it in my discussion
above because it was probably the best available choice when the Mac was
designed.  It would still serve well today for a small computer like the
Mac or IBM PC.
-- 
Larry Tepper	    {ihnp4 | allegra}!drutx!druil!lat	+1-303-538-1759